The study presented in this article is part of the project ‘Finding Viability in Daily Life’. In the project, participant-produced photographs of situations of well-being were used in interviews. A knowledge gap was identified: media-specific aspects of photographic material used in related research were not considered. In this study, photographs taken by twelve women aged 27–54 with a stress-related illness were examined. The research questions was: How are situations of well-being visually represented in photographs produced by the participants in the project, and how are these situations described in words by the participants? The results show that a typical photograph had a balanced composition, depicted a closed space with isolated object/s situated close to the beholder, and was taken from above. Indoor settings were more dominant than outdoor ones. The outdoor settings showed an open space and horizontal depictions more often than the indoor ones. A typical photograph depicted an activity or objects related to activities. By portraying calm and manageable spaces, the photographs visually suggested that qualities like balance and control are important aspects of experiencing well-being. These qualities of spaces for experiencing well-being were confirmed in interviews with the participants and by previous studies in the project.

Street art in the Indonesian city of Yogyakarta is popular, dynamic and vibrant. Like other cities such as Buenos Aires, it has become something of a tourist attraction in its own right. This article examines Yogyakarta street art as a visual phenomenon that activates political change potential in three ways. First, it provokes the critical consideration of ordinary people who pass by the walls and surfaces of the city every day. Second, it suggests alternative futures within the context of achieving social justice and redress of past wrongs. Third, it challenges the mainstream elite artworld of Indonesia that is anchored in galleries and commodification. Street artists constitute their grassroots art practice collectively, offline and online. Data was gathered ethnographically over two years. Analysis of data proceeds in the form of rhizoanalysis, in keeping with a non-representational framework drawn from the work of Deleuze and Guattari. The street art of Yogyakarta is considered as an assemblage, one characterised by the creative process of (political) becoming. The street artworks generate meaning through visual juxtapositions, gags and texts that imply lines of flight into a future generated by radical questioning. We argue that Yogyakarta street art can be read as a form of rebel imaginings.

"Crisis vision: Race and the cultural production of surveillance." Visual Studies, ahead-of-print(ahead-of-print), pp. 1–2

This paper examines how Black men use a participant photography project as a tool for meaning making during the current political and social context of anti-Black racism, Black activism, and intersectional politics. Using a critical visual methodology in the analysis of the images, this paper will examine how Black men make meaning of current social issues through the types of images they produced, how they make meaning of the types of audiences they are speaking to through the project, and how these meanings are reflected through their repositioning practices in the visual project. Specific attention is paid to how they used the project to visually reposition themselves against raced-gendered hegemonic ontologies of Black masculinities by producing images and narratives that were intended to educate and disrupt dominant discourses on Black men. For this reason, I argue that the visual project is a type of repositioning event, which was a way for Black men to resist racial hegemony through the participant photography project.

In this essay, we analyse pictures taken by participants of a research study on their daily lives during the initial lockdown period in Portugal, as the result of the emergence of the Covid-19 pandemic. Photographs have the power to freeze a moment in time that, despite being represented in two-dimensions, is multi-layered. These images reveal the profound impact of the pandemic on people’s lives, affecting the most basic elements of their existences, related to the organisation of time, the use of space and the maintenance of relationships. We argue that there is a ‘back to basics’ effect, not only in biographical terms but also sociologically, in the mobilisation of core concepts of the discipline to give depth and shape to the macro narratives (centred on numbers and trends) of the pandemic.

Considering the popularity of online platforms and their significant force in producing collective discourses, attitudes, and patterns of behaviours, this study critically examined the photographic portrayal of old Iranians on websites during the COVID-19 pandemic. The study focuses on this age group, which has been identified as the most vulnerable to the virus. Photographs of old people during COVID-19 are semiotic resources that enable researchers to excavate portrayals of ageing. Media portrayals of older adults gain resonance in ways they are constructed and societal effects that emerge through their widespread access. With an aim to contributing to the literature on visual social semiotic analysis, this study zoomed in on the portrayals of older Iranians on websites applying Kress and Van Leeuwen's visual grammar. The search for data, collected in the period of March to July 2020, yielded 39 results. The findings revealed that the portrayal of Iranian old people suffers from negative ageing stereotypes like ugliness, decline, and weakness. Notably, the analyzed photographs exhibited a higher degree of ageism towards old women than men.